


Skin Showing Through

by redstripedcouch



Category: SHINee
Genre: Canon Compliant, Enlistment, First Time, Haircut Fetish, Haircuts, M/M, headshaving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-28
Updated: 2015-11-28
Packaged: 2018-05-03 18:33:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5302376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redstripedcouch/pseuds/redstripedcouch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jonghyun is enlisting, he calls Taemin, they get him ready, they learn some new things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skin Showing Through

**Author's Note:**

> i have... nothing to say for myself honestly

Jonghyun calls Taemin out of the blue. Out of some kind of blue, at least, his voice cracking and too-fast on the phone. 

“Woah, woah, woah hyung. Slow down,” Taemin says after the first rush of words. “I can barely hear you when you talk like this.”

Jonghyun takes a big loud breath, loud enough for Taemin to hear through the speaker, but then he’s quiet. 

“You okay, hyung?”

“Fuck off Taeminnie, you know I’m not okay.”

And that’s fair, Taemin does know. He knows that Jonghyun has never wanted to enlist, always has held onto some silly hope that somehow he’d be able to get out of it. At least sit behind a desk, do something innocuous – anything but being a soldier. Jonghyun’s big velvet heart can’t fathom being a soldier.

“I know. I’m sorry. It snuck up on you, huh?”

Jonghyun sniffs. “Yeah.”

A beat of silence, then another. Taemin, keeping his voice quiet, asks, “You want me to come over? We don’t have to talk about it, we can just. Cuddle and nap if you want. Or get drunk.”

Jonghyun sniffs again. “Yeah, that sounds. Good.”

-

Jonghyun opens his door in sweatpants and a hoodie. His face is bare and his hair is overgrown, hanging into his eyes and down onto his neck. It looks nice, almost as long as Taemin’s. Almost long enough to pull back. 

Taemin hugs him in the doorway, bending down to fit Jonghyun in his arms. He threads his fingers into Jonghyun’s hair, smooths through the tangles there. Jonghyun has never been good at taking care of his own hair, too used to people doing it for him. It’s endearing, how messed he looks on his own.

“You smell,” Jonghyun says into Taemin’s neck.

“Yeah, well, I was about to take a shower when you called. Your needy ass interrupted me.”

“It’s okay.” Jonghyun pats Taemin’s ass. “I love you even when you’re gross.” He flashes a toothy grin and Taemin tugs on his hair sharply, not missing the way his smile twitches. 

“Are you gonna invite me in?”

Jonghyun mock bows and waves Taemin in. 

It’s odd thinking of how this apartment is going to be empty for almost two years. It’s even odder to realize that when Jonghyun is back again, Taemin won’t be around to see it. 

Taemin usually doesn’t mind the thought of enlisting. Usually it’s inevitable to him; it’s the way things are, and it’s fine. Thinking about Jonghyun, though, makes it a little harder.

Jonghyun has a bottle of soju on the counter, and he pours some into a mug for Taemin, takes a swig out of the bottle himself. He’s so on edge that his hands tremble, and he spills some on the counter. Taemin doesn’t mention it. They take several long gulps in silence. 

Looking at Jonghyun, it’s hard to picture. Him in a uniform, big boots, camouflage, hair shaved. It’s almost impossible to visualize, and yet. 

“Cheers to my last night on earth?” Jonghyun grins, it doesn’t reach his eyes. 

“Cheers to a new era?” Taemin counters, and clinks his mug against the neck of the bottle. 

“A new era.”

-

Hours later and they’re still awake, Taemin straddling the edge between sleepy and buzzing, laying half under Jonghyun on the futon, heart beating a little too fast from the alcohol, hands sifting through Jonghyun’s hair again.

It’s not as long as Taemin’s hair, not as long as it’s ever been. Just long enough to give Jonghyun’s face a little bit of a glow, to make him look even smaller and younger than he is. Taemin doesn’t know how he feels about it. He likes it when Jonghyun’s hair is shorter; when he can see Jonghyun’s whole face.

He does like the feel of it between his fingers though, and he likes Jonghyun’s hand splayed across his ribs, and he likes Jonghyun’s ankle overlapping with his. 

He doesn’t want Jonghyun to go. 

Taemin’s grip tightens in Jonghyun’s hair when he thinks about it, and then he realizes he can feel warm bleeding through his t-shirt from where Jonghyun is crying. His breath catches in his chest like it has every time Jonghyun has ever cried. He cradles Jonghyun’s head like it’s fragile. 

“I don’t even want to cut my hair,” Jonghyun says. “It’s stupid, I know, it’s just hair, but. I just don’t like being forced, I guess.”

Taemin smooths Jonghyun’s hair away from his face where it’s sticking in the wetness there.

Jonghyun is still crying, but he’s laughing at himself too. “It’s a stupid thing to get hung up on, but I keep coming back to it. I don’t know why.”

Taemin hums, pets across Jonghyun’s temples. “Are you going to do it yourself?”

Jonghyun hiccups. “I don’t know? I don’t know if I can. I don’t want to go to a stylist though.”

“Do you want me to do it?”

Jonghyun looks up at Taemin, his face red and wet and open and curious. “Hmm. Maybe?”

He looks scared and sort of wrecked and Taemin squeezes the back of his neck, tries to pretend that he’s not also scared and wrecked. They’re touching in so many places right now, and that’s not new in and of itself, but something feels different. It feels raw, just the energy coming from Jonghyun. Raw and desperate. 

Taemin moves a hand down Jonghyun’s shoulder, over the line of his waist, down to the small of his back and up, bump-bumping his fingers along Jonghyun’s spine until they find a grip in his hair again. Jonghyun shivers. Taemin can feel his hot breath on his chest. 

“You’ll look good without hair,” Taemin says and his voice comes out scratchier than he expects. 

“I guess, maybe,” Jonghyun mumbles into Taemin’s shirt. “I think you should do it.”

Taemin tugs on Jonghyun’s hair again, hears the tiny whimper Jonghyun makes. Jonghyun wiggles up until his face is level with Taemin’s and buries his nose in Taemin’s hair by his ear. 

“I thought I smelled bad?” Taemin teases. 

“You’re disgusting. Your hair smells nice though.” Jonghyun inhales. “It’s no fair you get to keep it.”

Taemin hums. Jonghyun makes no move to get up, and Taemin is warm and comfortable. But it’s getting late. 

“You ready?” Taemin asks. 

Jonghyun doesn’t answer, and then he’s shaking and Taemin knows that he’s crying again. He wraps his arms tight around Jonghyun’s waist, unsure of how to help him. 

Jonghyun’s tears are soaking Taemin’s hair. What if – 

Taemin has a thought and it rushes through him, his mind kicks into overdrive and his body combusts with heat. 

“What if I let you cut my hair too?”

Jonghyun lifts his head, eyes wide. “Seriously?”

Taemin’s heart is beating so fast. “Yeah sure, why not? Gonna have to cut it off soon anyway. Plus it’s just hair.” He works hard to make his voice casual, but he’s burning up. 

Jonghyun’s mouth spreads slowly into a grin. He grabs a piece of hair by Taemin’s air and twirls it around his finger. 

“Okay. Deal.”

-

They turn up the heat in Jonghyun’s bathroom and take off their shirts and their socks. Jonghyun’s mood is up, and he’s excitedly snapping the blades of the scissors together. 

“Turn around,” he says. “You can’t look in the mirror right away.”

Taemin obeys, the butterflies in his stomach swirling with nerves as Jonghyun takes a handful of his hair at the front and closes the scissors through it. Taemin can’t see what’s happening, but he can feel the chunk spring up and hit the middle of his forehead. 

His knees feel a little weak. He always gets a rush of nerves and adrenaline when he gets his hair cut, but something about this feels different. 

Jonghyun giggles, snips off another section of Taemin’s hair at the front. Then another and another and then he finally spins Taemin around so he can see the rough, short bangs Jonghyun has cut into his hair across his forehead, an inch above his eyebrows. The rest of his hair hands to his chin. He looks ridiculous. 

Taemin chuckles, tugging at the short hair. “You’d better make me look good eventually,” he says. 

Jonghyun starts to hum as he continues to chop through Taemin’s thick hair, moving haphazardly around his head and tossing clumps of hair to the floor. Taemin enjoys the feeling of Jonghyun’s hands in his hair, and the warm air on his flushed skin, and the strange thrill of knowing that he’s letting Jonghyun wreak havoc on his hair, the feeling of being totally out of control. 

A few minutes later, Jonghyun stops, petting the sides of Taemin’s neck as they both look into the mirror. Taemin’s hair is a two-inch long spiky mess all over. 

“Can I see the scissors?” Taemin asks through the trembling in his stomach and the tightness in his throat. 

Jonghyun hands them over and puts his hands back on Taemin’s neck, watching in the mirror as Taemin pulls a piece of hair out from his forehead and closes the scissors through it right at his scalp, as close as they can go. It’s so satisfying, cutting his hair completely to the root. Taemin is half-hard in his jeans, and he doesn’t miss the small gasp Jonghyun lets out. 

“Taeminnie! Now I have to shave it all off.”

“Wasn’t that the original goal?” Taemin says as he cuts off another chunk close to his skin. He fishes the clippers from the cupboard under the sink and plugs them in. He touches the little spikes of the metal blades with his finger, then hands them to Jonghyun. 

“Seriously? Isn’t there supposed to be a guard?” Jonghyun’s eyes are so, so wide. 

“Might as well go all the way,” Taemin shrugs, trying not to betray the way his whole body is humming. 

“Whatever you say,” Jonghyun says, and switches the clippers on. He doesn’t hesitate before he pushes them up the back of Taemin’s head. 

Taemin can’t see what’s happening, but he feels the vibrations on his skin, and he hears the gasp of, “Oh, fuck,” that Jonghyun lets out at the first pass of the clippers. 

Taemin locks eyes with Jonghyun in the mirror and Jonghyun’s skin is so much redder than it usually is and Taemin feels so hot all over and he thinks maybe Jonghyun is feeling the same way, maybe Taemin isn’t alone in his oddly displaced arousal. 

Jonghyun blinks away from the eye contact and turns his attention back to Taemin’s hair, buzz buzz buzzing and hair is raining down onto his shoulders and back and he still can’t see what it looks like but then – oh. Jonghyun takes off the hair above his right ear and oh, that’s. Taemin has been dyed recently enough that the roots are lighter than they should be, and the clippers are leaving behind stubble. Light brown just barely-there stubble, and if Taemin unfocuses his eyes it just looks like skin. 

Fuck, he’s never had hair this short, not even when they’ve buzzed the back and sides short before. He’s bald and he’s hard and this is not how he thought his night would go. 

Taemin is breathing shallow in his throat and his skin is pulled taut and tingling by the time Jonghyun turns him around so he can get the front and top of his head. In just a few quick passes all of his hair is gone. 

He turns back around, and his scalp is covered in light dust, the shortest stubble. He reaches up. It feels like soft sandpaper under his palm. 

“Wow,” he breathes. He’s shaking so much. 

“Well?” Jonghyun asks, wrapping his arms around Taemin’s waist and resting his chin on Taemin’s shoulder. Taemin is sure that Jonghyun can feel the way his stomach jumps and twitches under his hands. 

“I like it,” Taemin says. It’s an understatement, because the way his body is thrumming is like nothing he’s ever felt before, and he’s so hard it’s almost painful. 

It’s weird seeing his head bare, his face exposed and the shape of his skull. But he’s so filled with adrenaline and he’s so inexplicably turned on that he can’t feel any way but good. Jonghyun’s hand strokes slow paths back and forth over his stomach, low, by the waistband of his jeans. 

“Taemin-ah.”

“Hmm?”

“Are you hard right now?”

Jonghyun’s voice is soft and disbelieving, but there’s a thrill of excitement in it too. He doesn’t sound put off, just. Surprised and curious. 

“Maybe,” Taemin says, squeezing his eyes shut.

Jonghyun leaves one hand on his stomach and the other comes up to rub at his head, over the back of his skull and the nape of his neck. God, that feeling.

“I don’t know why,” he says, but his voice is hoarse and his stomach muscles are contracting. 

Jonghyun hums, slipping his fingertips under Taemin’s waistband. The other is still making passes over his head, and the feeling of it makes Taemin whimper. Jonghyun bites gently at the muscle between Taemin’s neck and shoulder. 

“Fuck,” Taemin breathes. What a weird night. “Isn’t it your turn?”

Jonghyun presses his whole body to Taemin’s back suddenly, and Taemin can’t quite tell, but it feels like he might be a little hard too. He just stays there for a moment, like he needs to ground himself, and Taemin breathes heavily through it. 

“Okay,” Jonghyun says. His voice is shaky. 

Taemin turns around to look at him, gets his hands in Jonghyun’s hair, rests their hips lightly together. Jonghyun’s lips are bitten and red and raw. He wants to kiss them. They’ve never been like that, not for all the touches they’ve shared over the years, but it doesn’t feel awkward.

Taemin decides just to ask. “Would it be too weird if I kissed you?” 

Jonghyun laughs. “What the fuck Taeminnie, all of this is weird. Kiss me.”

So Taemin does, hot and wet and biting, tugging on the ends of Jonghyun’s hair and pressing their bellies together. Jonghyun’s mouth feels amazing, and Taemin kind of regrets never doing this before. 

“Alright?” Taemin says against Jonghyun’s lips. 

Jonghyun breathes out, “Yeah.”

“Turn around.”

Jonghyun’s eyes are big and too shiny, so Taemin cups his face and says, “Don’t worry, I think you’ll like it.” He leans in close. “It feels fucking amazing.”

Jonghyun shivers but nods and turns around. He presses up against the counter and Taemin reaches over him for the clippers. Taemin is sure Jonghyun can feel how hard he is against his back, but at his point he doesn’t care, and it doesn’t get better as he holds Jonghyun’s hot forehead in his hand and pushes the clippers back, straight down the middle of his head.

Jonghyun lets out a sharp gasp as the hair on the top of his head is reduced to stubble, darker than Taemin’s, a fine black cover.

“Fuck,” Jonghyun breathes. “It’s so short. Holy shit.”

And fuck if this isn’t turning Taemin on even more, shaving off all of Jonghyun’s long hair to nothing. He doesn’t know where this rush of heat is coming from, but he’s burning up and sweat is pooling in Jonghyun’s collarbones and inches of hair are falling past them to join Taemin’s on the floor and Taemin has never ever been this turned on by something that wasn’t explicitly sexual. 

Soon – almost too soon if Taemin lets himself think that – Jonghyun’s hair is gone. 

His face looks so much more sharp and intense like this, his cheekbones and temples cutting dramatically, his eyebrows so thick and dark, his features big and pronounced. 

“You look fucking hot,” Taemin breathes into Jonghyun’s ear, scratching his fingertips along Jonghyun’s rough scalp. 

Jonghyun is staring at them in the mirror, eyes blown out, chest shining with sweat. 

“Yeah?” The way Jonghyun’s throat moves as he swallows makes Taemin’s hips stutter unconsciously. He grinds up a little against Jonghyun. “I kind of do, shit.” Jonghyun laughs. It sounds breathy and disbelieving. 

Taemin lays his hand out against Jonghyun’s chest, drags it over a nipple and then down over his ribs and stomach. He sucks a kiss into the back of Jonghyun’s neck and, on a long-building impulse, fits a hand over Jonghyun’s crotch. He’s as hard as Taemin is and Taemin smiles, bites at his neck. 

“Fuck,” Jonghyun growls out, grinding into Taemin’s palm. 

Taemin moves his hands, grips Jonghyun’s hips and turns him around so they’re face to face. Their hips press together and they’re both moving, rubbing together through their pants, and it’s so good and Taemin has been so on edge for so long he already feels like he’s losing his mind. 

His lips find Jonghyun’s again, and his hands can’t stop moving, up and down Jonghyun’s back, his neck, his stubble-covered head. It feels like every nerve in his body is lit up. 

Jonghyun is making so many little noises, little whimpers and moans and whines, and Taemin feels desperate but at least they both are. Jonghyun lifts up to sit on the counter, and they rut against each other like that, and Jonghyun seems to feel the same way Taemin does, his hands making their way again and again to stroke at Taemin’s head. 

“Fuck, fuck,” Jonghyun groans, breaking away from Taemin’s mouth and panting against his neck, hot and wet. “Fuck why is this so fu- fucking hot.”

Taemin doesn’t have an answer, but it is, and his orgasm is coiling up in his belly so he doesn’t answer, just presses impossibly closer and moves his hips faster. 

He comes in his pants with Jonghyun like that, pressed together from hips to chest, gripping the back of Jonghyun’s head, and Jonghyun gripping him back. Jonghyun wails out his orgasm like that too, and then they settle, panting out damp spots onto each other’s skin. 

Taemin looks down, really notices for the first time that they’re standing barefooted on a carpet of cut hair, and he laughs. 

“I can’t believe any of that just happened,” he says, breathless and still so close to Jonghyun’s face. 

Jonghyun just whines a little, leans up and kisses him again, sloppy and fast. “Fucking hell, Taemin,” is all he says. 

Taemin is still keyed up, still trembling slightly, and he reaches up with the hand not on Jonghyun’s waist to feel his own head, shivers again at the feeling of stubble. Fuck, he can’t believe this happened. 

He notices, after a few moments, that they’re both absolutely covered in little pieces of hair, and his skin is sticky and itchy with sweat. 

“We should definitely shower,” he says with one last kiss to Jonghyun’s neck.

Jonghyun nods, and they crowd into the shower together. It takes a while, but Taemin manages to wash all the hair off of Jonghyun’s body, and Jonghyun does the same for him. It’s a long shower, neither of them eager to stop touching, and Taemin can’t get enough of the way Jonghyun looks like this, water falling down him in sheets and droplets, his mouth swollen and hair all gone. It’s the hottest thing Taemin has ever maybe seen. 

Eventually they make their way out of the shower, stepping over the hair on the floor. They collapse into bed together, pressing together completely without hesitation.

Taemin looks at Jonghyun’s face, his sex-sleepy face with no hair to hide it, and he feels a pang of sudden sadness at the remembrance that he won’t be able to see Jonghyun for a while after tomorrow. 

“This is shit timing,” he says, running his knuckles over Jonghyun’s cheekbone.

Jonghyun pouts. “I’m at peace with the hair, but fuck, I still don’t want to go.”

“I know,” Taemin says quietly. “It’ll be okay though, and it’s not for that long when you really think about it. And I’ll see you on your breaks.”

“Will you sneak in and see me?” Jonghyun asks, absentmindedly touching Taemin’s head. “You’ll blend right in now.”

Taemin giggles. “I can definitely try.”

They lapse into silence, and Taemin doesn’t resist the urge to lean in and kiss Jonghyun softly. They’ll make up for the lost time.

“At least we have another twelve hours to have as much sex as we possibly can,” Jonghyun says, and Taemin laughs against his face. 

“You read my mind.”


End file.
